What materials are available?

What sizes are available?

Two of our design templates are available for PCM designs - P1 and P2 sheet sizes. These design templates match the size of the material sheets, and you can choose the one that best suits the size of your design.

How much will it cost?

Unlike the pricing for our other cutting services, PCM is a flat rate based on the size of your material. You can add as many designs as you like to maximize your material usage and lower the cost per unit. Please note that you will need to leave a small gap between multiple designs on the same sheet. See prices here.

How do I get a quote?

Click here to get an instant online quote to make your design from 3 different metals. There, you'll upload your correctly formatted digital design file, choose a material to make it from, then you’ll see an instant quote to make it.

How long will it take to receive my designs?

Orders ship in about 15 business days.

How do you design for Photochemical Machining?

You need to format your file in a certain way so we know what your design is to look like. The requirements for PCM are different from other fabrication processes and are as follows:

To etch an area

Any textures or patterns that you want etched into the top of the material ...

Set the fill color to black with RGB values of 128, 128, 128:

To cut internal holes

Any cut-outs inside the outline ...

Set the fill color to black with RGB values of 0, 0, 0:

To cut an outline

The outer most line around your shape, the edge ...

Set the stroke weight to 0.8mm:

And set the stroke color to blue with RGB values of 0, 0, 255:

This line will need a break in it (a tab) to hold your design into the surrounding material during production. When you receive your design you can wiggle your parts to remove them from the waste.

How do you tab your designs into the materials?

Add a break in blue outer cut line that is 0.04” / 1.0mm in length. Your tab MUST be this size or larger or it may not survive the making process and your part/s will be lost:

Parts 0.25” - 2.5” / 6mm - 63mm need one tab. Parts 2.5” / 63mm or greater need 2 or more tabs. The tabs must be in a place on the design that can structurally support the design during production. If in doubt ask us for advice.

How do you add a break in your line?

Select the “Add Anchor Point (+)” tool.

Click on your line to add 2 new points 0.04” / 1mm apart:

Using the Direct Selection Tool click on the line between the 2 points you just added:

Delete this line segment:

What is the smallest overall part size that can be made?

There is a minimum part size of around 0.25” x 0.25” / 6.3mm x 6.3mm. Parts smaller than this are too difficult to process and cannot be made.

What is the smallest feature that can be made?

The kerf for PCM is half the material thickness. This means that a small amount of material is lost while the chemical cuts out your design. You need to make sure your design accounts for this.

Any positive features smaller than 0.04” / 1.0mm will be too thin and might bend or get damaged in handling. Any negative features (holes) smaller than 0.04” / 1.0mm may not be completely cut out.

How close together can you put your designs in the sheet?

All design must be spaced to have 0.20” / 5.0mm of separation between them in the design file. As such you cannot share cutting lines. All designs must be isolated. There can be no joined or nested parts:

How do you convert fonts for laser cutting?

Any text you use in your design file needs to be converted to outlines. This is as simple as selecting your text and then choosing Type > Create Outlines from the top menu. You won't be able to edit the text once you've done this, so do it last after your spell check:

Set the offset line color to Blue (r:0 g:0 b:0). Change the line weight to 0.8mm. Remove the construction line from your design:

How to convert strokes to fills

To turn a black stroke into a filled shape in Adobe Illustrator, select your line and use the Object > Path > Outline Stroke command. We don't recommend converting lines that are less than 0.02" / 0.5mm in stroke weight.

Make sure you only use a solid, single color fill – no patterns or textures.

Creating complex laser-cut shapes easily

You will find a key set of tools in Adobe Illustrator for creating laser-cut designs is the Pathfinder window. You can access this by using the Window > Pathfinder command:

Using the tools in this window, you'll be able to combine shapes and remove one from another - resulting in clean closed paths that will help you easily cut out exactly what you're wanting to make. We recommend exploring these commands and discovering how they can help.